


Out in the Great Wide Open

by iiii



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 09:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iiii/pseuds/iiii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Huh, Sam thought. I guess being John Winchester's son does have an up side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out in the Great Wide Open

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Short Order Murder](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/29071) by Lisa Davis. 



"Two bills for the night."

"We have reservations for Big Basin."

"Three."

"You validate parking?"

"Of course."

Sam covered the mouthpiece and said to Jessica, "He's offering three hundred for next Saturday."

She gave him a 'well, duh' look and nodded. With tips, that would be a month's rent and groceries earned in a night.

"OK," Sam said into the phone. "Give me the details again."

 

"Sorry about the camping trip," Sam said.

"I'm sorry too," Jessica said, "but the redwoods aren't going anywhere. We can camp another time. Who is it?"

"Some club by Union Square."

"Excellent! Night out in the city!"

"Jess, I have to work."

"Yeah, but I don't. And my camping trip just got cancelled." She hit speed dial #3 on her phone. "Hey, Becky, Sam has a job in the city next Saturday. Want to go dancing?"

Sam rolled his eyes and packed up for class.

*****

Full ride: tuition, fees, a bed in the dorms, all he could eat in the dining halls, a stipend for books, and the promise of a work-study job.

Sam's application essay had been downright heartrending. 

The stipend had covered his books, all right, and left enough over for pencils. The job... the job was not in the library. Everybody wanted to work in the library, and Sam's luck didn't stretch quite that far. The work-study office found Sam something at a rec center in East Palo Alto. It was enough hours to keep him in notebooks and laundry quarters, not enough to keep him in shoes, and too far away to walk. Public transit in the suburbs sucks, too. Sam used the money Dean had pressed on him on his way out the door to buy an ugly but functional ten-speed. All Dean's ready cash at the time, that had been. 

Sam was getting by. Barely. It didn't help that he was still a growing boy. (Growing even more, now that he had all four food groups available in unlimited quantities at every meal.) It didn't help that the nineties were over and the thrift-store look wasn't really cutting it. He needed more income. He needed new shoes. He couldn't bartend. You have to be 21 for that in California, and Sam couldn't pass, not yet. He was having no luck scrounging up a second job that would fit in to the limited leftover time in his schedule and pay enough to be worth the trouble. He had begun to think seriously about spending a day at Pier 39 lifting tourist wallets, when fortune smiled.

There was a dance-at-the-gym sort of thing at the rec center. Sam's boss Matilda put Sam on the door because he was the biggest college student they had. Matilda told him to try to keep weapons out, and if there was any trouble - any at all - to back off and call the cops over to deal with it. They were used to that, the cops. She gave Sam an encouraging smile and sent him to stand outside the main door with a middle-aged volunteer named Felix. Someone's dad, Sam thought.

Felix tried to help, at first, and then stood aside and watched Sam work. Seemed like the kid had radar, so quick was Sam at spotting who was carrying by eyeball alone. It wasn't much harder for Sam to convince them to leave it outside. He shuffled through personae like an experienced con-man until he found what worked on any given customer. He was businesslike. He was apologetic and puppy-eyed in half-assed border Spanish. He had a yard stare that effectively conveyed the idea that Sam had been places tougher than juvie and had killed things scarier than the chollo looking back at him. He took a knife off of one guy, flipped it to catch the blade, and with a practiced throw stuck it in a eucalyptus halfway across the lawn. "Nice balance," Sam told the guy, "but you can't bring it inside." 

During the next lull Felix, who happened to own a night club nearby, offered Sam a job. 

Huh, Sam thought. I guess being John Winchester's son does have an up side.

Sam worked the door at Felix's night club four nights a week for the next two years. 

*****

Sam settled up with the manager of the club by Union Square and went out the front. Turns out the ridiculous hourly rate was because the kids from Visitacion Valley had taken to combining their throwdowns with their nights out on the town, and tonight's headliner was one of their favorite acts. The kids had made Sam earn his money, too. He stretched, counted new bruises, decided to get the knee checked at student health in the morning. Having legit health coverage was a marvelous thing.

Sam went down half a block and across the intersection, into the 24-hour diner. Jess and the gang were in the big booth at the far end. Sam asked the guy on the counter for a patty melt and a cup of coffee as he went by. He'd been on his feet for seven hours, and he was pretty sure he was going to get stuck driving home.

Zach was running his mouth as Sam walked up, telling the newspaper version of the murder that had happened out front in 1997, just a little too loud. Story was that some woman sitting at the counter had asked the cook for poached eggs, which weren't on the menu. The cook said yes, the day manager said no, and the cook and the day manager bickered about it all shift. Come the next morning, the cook brought a gun to work and shot the day manager dead. 

The waitress appeared with Sam's coffee. He could tell from her professionally masked hatred that she had heard Zach talking, that she had known the murderer and the victim, that she didn't like to hear them spoken of lightly by brats like them.

Sam wanted to tell her, Sorry. They're just kids. Sheltered, naive kids. They don't know that it's even possible to have a real person you actually know murdered by another real person you actually know. They think really bad stuff only happens on the far side of a TV screen. They think being smart is the same as knowing something. They don't mean anything by it. Sorry. 

But he couldn't say that, so Sam insistently changed the subject to basketball and left an excessive tip.

The drive home was quiet. Sam wondered idly what had ordered the poached eggs that morning back in '97. He could do some research... No. Whatever it was, it was long gone. He put it from his mind, and considered instead whether to take along Aquinas or Marquez to read while waiting to get his knee checked. Having health insurance was _awesome_.


End file.
